Nous cherchons à créer des jeux qui marquent les joueurs et les joueuses, comme nos précédentes productions Haven ou Furi. Grâce au succès de nos jeux, nous sommes un studio indépendant et autofinancé et nous travaillons sur des créations originales.

Notre équipe est en télétravail, avec des horaires flexibles. Notre studio est engagé sur les problématiques de diversité et d’éco-sobriété de notre industrie. Nous sommes ouverts à des candidatures avec des parcours atypiques (reconversion, autodidacte etc).

Mission :

• Editer des zones du jeu dans le moteur de jeu (Unity) avec les outils internes (pipe 3D dans Unity)
• Concevoir du LD qui crée des challenges variés, avec une bonne gestion du rythme et des émotions
• Concevoir du LD qui marie les contraintes de gameplay et de level art
• Tester et itérer sur le LD, adapter en fonction du test et des playtests

Profil :

• Expérience professionnelle en level design
• A déjà participé au développement – de la conception jusqu’au lancement – de un ou plusieurs jeux commercialisés
• Sait travailler avec Unity
• Autonomie, pragmatisme, capacité à travailler en équipe, bonne humeur
• Bon esprit de synthèse et d’une bonne communication, à l’oral et à l’écrit, en français et en anglais
• Apprécier de faire du LD dans des environnements graphiques naturels et réalistes est souhaitable
• Francophone

Informations additionnelles :

• CDD ou mission freelance plein temps (4 jours / semaine minimum)
• Dates : dès que possible – mission de 10 mois
• Lieu : En télétravail (toute notre équipe est en télétravail depuis 14 ans)
• Rémunération compétitive, avec intéressement et bonus projet, horaires flexibles, PEE, journées couette, mutuelle de qualité, aide à la garde d’enfants…

Pour postuler : un petit mot avec votre CV et portfolio à hello@thegamebakers.com

Merci de vos candidatures !

Vous rejoindrez une équipe de 15 personnes, qui ont travaillé ensemble sur nos précédents projets et livrent des jeux de qualité, sans crunch et dans la bonne humeur. Notre équipe travaille à 100% en télétravail, avec des horaires flexibles.

Game Bakers est une petite équipe talentueuse qui fait des jeux qui marquent les joueurs et les joueuses, comme nos précédentes créations Haven ou Furi. Grâce au succès de nos jeux, nous sommes un studio indépendant et auto-financé et nous travaillons sur des créations originales qui sortent tous les 3-4 ans.

Mission

• Créer des zones du jeu dans le moteur de jeu (Unity) avec les outils interne (pipe 3D)
• Concevoir du LD qui crée des challenges variés, avec une bonne gestion du rythme et des émotions
• Concevoir du LD qui marie les contraintes de gameplay et de level art
• Proposer des solutions et améliorations du pipeline et des outils de LD

Profil

• Expérience professionnelle en game / level design
• A déjà participé au développement – de la conception jusqu’au lancement – de plusieurs jeux commercialisés
• Sait travailler avec Unity
• Autonomie, pragmatisme, capacité à travailler en équipe, bonne humeur
• Bon esprit de synthèse et d’une bonne communication, à l’oral et à l’écrit, en français et en anglais

Informations complémentaires
Dates : début entre novembre 2022 et janvier 2023
Lieu : l’équipe est intégralement en télétravail, mais nous avons un studio à Montpellier qui peut vous accueillir.
Rémunération compétitive et bonus, horaires flexibles, mutuelle de qualité, aide à la garde d’enfants, frais de télétravail.
Contrat : CDD ou Freelance

Pour postuler
Un petit mot avec votre CV à hello@thegamebakers.com

Merci de vos candidatures !

Vous rejoindrez une équipe de 15 personnes, qui ont travaillé ensemble sur nos précédents projets et livrent des jeux de qualité, sans crunch et dans la bonne humeur. Notre équipe travaille à 100% en télétravail, avec des horaires flexibles. 

Game Bakers est une petite équipe talentueuse qui fait des jeux qui marquent les joueurs et les joueuses, comme nos précédentes créations Haven ou Furi. Grâce au succès de nos jeux, nous sommes un studio indépendant et auto-financé et nous travaillons sur des créations originales qui sortent tous les 3-4 ans.

Mission :

• Développer le gameplay principal du jeu
• Proposer des solutions, des design, des implémentations qui concrétisent la vision 

Profil :

• Diplôme en informatique de niveau BAC +4/+5 (école d’ingénieur ou formation similaire)
• Connaissances approfondies en C# (C++ bienvenu)
• Compétences solides en mathématiques (algèbre linéaire, trigonométrie, quaternions)
• Compétences solides en physique et systèmes d’animation (IK, ragdoll, playables, animation procédurale)
• Sait travailler avec Unity 
• Capacité à reprendre rapidement le code existant
• A déjà participé au développement – de la conception jusqu’au lancement – de plusieurs jeux commercialisés 
• Autonomie, pragmatisme, capacité à travailler en équipe, bonne humeur
• Francophone
• De l’intérêt ou des connaissances en biomécanique, mécanique newtonnienne et anatomie humaine sont un plus

Informations additionnelles :

• CDI
• Dates : dès que possible – début avant octobre 2022.
• Lieu : l’équipe est intégralement en télétravail, mais nous avons un studio à Montpellier qui peut vous accueillir.
• Rémunération compétitive et bonus, horaires flexibles, mutuelle de qualité, aide à la garde d’enfants, frais de télétravail.

Pour postuler : un petit mot avec votre CV à hello@thegamebakers.com

Merci de vos candidatures !

The Onnamusha DLC will let you play as Onnamusha Rider, a powerful fighter that alternates between two stances: fast and agile or slower but lethal until she’s able to unleash the devastating power of the Star. The new gameplay mechanics bring new challenges, for a complete rediscovery of the game.

After Furi we needed a break from intense and fast paced action and we made Haven.
And after Haven we wanted to feel the thrill of combat again… So we worked on a little something during the summer.
We’ve read all the Furi fans messages and this request really stuck with us: “I wish I could forget Furi to discover it for the first time all over again”. We asked ourselves: how could we do that? Is there a way for players to rediscover Furi?

A couple of weeks later we were working on Onnamusha.

Onnamusha is a new playable character. It is Rider as a woman, but most importantly it’s a new fighter with a completely different playstyle. While the original game is very demanding but pretty simple in terms of abilities (you can dash, parry, slash and shoot), Onnamusha adds a layer of tactics by alternating two combat stances:

Spark: while in Spark stance, Rider is faster than ever, heals on parry and can double dash but deals weak damage.
Storm: in Storm stance, Rider is extremely lethal, but very slow and has a vulnerable jump roll.

It’s a different rhythm when playing with Onnamusha, as you’re always toggling between stances to optimize your damage and maximize your chances of avoiding hits.

But there’s more. When you make damage or parry successfully, you fill a special power gauge. It’s true in both stances, but while in Spark you will fill the gauge much faster. When the gauge is full, you can trigger the Star power and benefit from the best of the two worlds: be even faster and even deadlier.

And finally, another mechanic finishes to make Onnamusha a very fun and rich character to play: the burst mechanic. You get a boost in damage and defense just after you change stance, for a couple of seconds. In Spark stance, you’ll shoot many more bullets during burst. In Storm you’ll fire bigger and faster bullets. In both stances, your slashes will be deadlier. This makes it valuable to toggle stance frequently to take advantage of the power burst.

With these new combat skills, each bossfight can be approached with new strategies. You’ll have to decide when to deal damage with the Storm stance, when to toggle stances to benefit from the burst, when to use your Spark speed to defend, gain back some life or build up your Star power. And eventually, decide when is the perfect moment to use the power of the Star and destroy your opponent.

You can get the Onnamusha DLC (6.99$) and rediscover Furi with Onnamusha in Story mode, Speedrun mode (with dedicated leaderboards) and Practice mode.

In the Furi free update that is made available at the same time as the DLC, we have included all previous content that was released on the game, and in particular the previous “One More Fight” DLC with The Flame bossfight (and secret boss Bernard). We also updated the game in general and added new accessibility improvements with the ability to unlock trophies in Promenade Mode, an option to autocomplete Quick Time Events, and a couple of additional control schemes.

Rediscover Furi: Furi Update and Onnamusha DLC is available on PC, PS4, PS5 and Switch.

Go back stranger. We will bring you back.

Haven makes you play as Yu and Kay, a young couple who are not supposed to be together. While everything in the universe is trying to tear them apart, they keep fighting for the freedom to be in love.

In Haven’s first version of the game, Yu and Kay are a young man and women. But one of the key theme of Haven has always been about “being free to love who you want”. Initially, our game concept featured 8 couples, with some of them being gay and lesbian. It was a very natural and obvious way to go with such a theme.

But production constraints made us cut all these characters and refocus the story and the game over two characters only. This allowed us to craft a very unique and moving story about two persons in love. Two personalities, two lives tangled with each other that players would come to know and fall in love with during the game.

After Haven released last year, we took some time to work on a unique update that would better support the game’s theme: you can now choose to play the game with the lovers you want. Either a woman and a man, two women or two men.

This is a fantastic update that lets you play the game with the same couple, Yu and Kay, but offers you the choice for them to be two men or two women. Let’s make things clear though: this is not a new story arc and the new couples do not have gameplay specificities. This is “just” a way to allow more people to enjoy Haven in a way that represents them better. We are very proud to make Haven represent love in a broader way!

You might have noticed that Kay as a woman and Yu as a man look very similar to their opposed gender versions. There are two reasons for that: first they are the same characters in the story, they share the same backstory and life. And second, for technical reasons, we had to keep the same body size, hairstyle and body shape.

This update may seem like a small addition but it actually took us more than eight months of hard work. We had to design and create new 3D models, but also redraw all the 2D assets in the game the dialog portraits, the loading screens, the key illustrations, some contents in the endings… The only thing that wasn’t redone is the opening animation, which plays before the couple choice.

We also made sure the dialogs were correct with each couple. This means supporting new translations in all 8 languages (2 new translations, one if Kay is a woman and one if Yu is a man), as well as changing and recording some lines that had some kind of explicit or implicit gender in English (like if Yu says “Mister” to Kay… that doesn’t work with a woman anymore). And we re-recorded all the dialogs of the game with two new actors, Lexie Ann Kendrick and Ryan Highley.

When you make a game over many years of development, there’s always things that you wish you had done differently. Players sometimes ask us “why can’t I choose the gender of my characters in Haven?”, but at the time we could never have made that feature. Especially as it’s the story of Yu and Kay, unique characters crafted with strong intentions. But a year after the original release, we were able to make that very special addition to the game, and we hope many new players will be able to meet Yu and Kay ! (and Oink)

I played tons of RPGs when I was a kid and a teenager. Video games at the time were designed for people my age. The writing was simple, naive. The relationships between characters were simplistic as well. Romance, especially, was treated in a very childish way. Even if the characters were adults or young adults, they were acting like children who have never had a romantic relationship before. The core of the game was never about love, it was about getting stronger, defeating a powerful enemy and saving the world.

Image from the game Secret of Mana, still a great game despite not being “modern”

The romance was a side story. A “love interest” as we sometimes say. there was very little to feed on the romance side. The boy (most of the time it was a male lead) met a girl and eventually, at the end of the story, they kinda were in love (we knew because they hugged in a cutscene).

Lunar: Eternal Blue, one of the best JRPG from the 90s

Growing up, I got really thirsty for seeing more of that side of the story. What happens in between the quests? What do characters do when they don’t explore dungeons or buy shinier swords? Can I look behind the curtain and see what happens in my group of heroes when they stop at the inn?

Final Fantasy XV camping sequences

That’s a part I really liked in Final Fantasy XV, when they stopped to camp, in a high standing camping tent, with transat chairs and luxury barbeque. It was a story about friendship and you could actually witness it. That’s also what makes the Persona series so unique: it’s not only a JRPG and a dungeon crawler, it’s a social sim. You get to see your characters at school, in their families, in their hobbies and jobs. And they date. You see the bonds between the characters develop, should it be love or friendship.

Persona 5 social bonding and dating gameplay

But even in Persona games, it’s still about flirting, about the early days of a relationship. You can eventually date one of your teammates, but that’s the endgame. It got me really interested: what if we saw a real relationship. What happens when they are a couple, a real one. Not an “anime character” one. What if we described a lasting relationship in a video game?

Haven is trying to do exactly that. Tell you a thrilling story of runaway lovers in space, fighting to stay together. There’s action, mystery, exploration and combat. But you get to see behind the curtain. You see them in their intimacy. The dialogs are written in a modern, relatable way. The RPG gameplay is paced with slices of their life while they try to settle in a deserted planet. You get to see them eating, playing games, chatting about their life, doing chores, getting a haircut, fighting or having fun.

And obviously, as an established couple, they have sex. It’s part of their life, it’s neither a taboo or a big deal (most of the time in games it’s either absent or a memorable first time). In Haven they tease each other, they joke about it. It’s healthy, fun, tender. You don’t “see them making love” because it’s not the point, that would be going too far in their intimacy, but it’s definitely not a taboo.

I really loved playing these games when I was a child and I’m still very fond of love stories in Final Fantasy or Persona games, but I’m happy we could come up with something unique, a tone that was missing in the video game landscape. We have received a fantastic response from players about how genuine Yu and Kay’s relationship feels and how it makes them relatable. We hope this will keep on growing with PS4 and Switch’s versions that just launched and inspire more games to deal with love and sex more healthily and honestly. If you wish to discover more about Haven you can read our previous blog posts about Haven’s inspirations,  making a relaxing experience by designing simplicity, the co-op and the gameplay or it’s beautiful opening.

Peace & Love & Video Games everyone!

Updates and Patch notes

We will be listing the patches on our dedicated blog post here.

Known issues

If you want to know about the bugs and issues and solutions for them, you can check the dedicated post on Steam forums.

What platforms is the game available on?

The game is available on PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series X and One (Game Pass), PC (Steam, GoG.com, Microsoft Store…) and Nintendo Switch.

Is there a physical release planned?

For now it’s digital only. We will explore collector editions in 2021.

Controls

What languages are supported?

Voices: English
Text: English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Spanish.

How to play co-op?

The game is playable solo, but at any time a second player can join locally (couch co-op). Co-op online is not supported.
To start co-op, you just need to activate a second controller. On PC, you can choose whether you want to play with two controllers (by default) or one controller and one keyboard (you can choose that from the options menu, controls section).

We have heard some players use Remote Play on Steam with good results to play together remotely. The experience can vary greatly according to the network setup and conditions of the two players. Our recommendation is that the player with the best connection launches the game. It’s important to note that Remote Play simulates a local game, so two controllers are also needed to play co-op. (Note: co-op with two players using KBM controls is not supported. It’s either two gamepads or one gamepad and one KBM).

We haven’t tested Play Together on PS5 yet as we could not get our hands on PS5 consoles haha. Let us know.

About the 18+ rating

The 18+ rating is mostly due to the age rating process, as a healthy representation of love does not fit into classic videogames age rating categories.

SEX: In our view, there is nothing shocking for a 16-year-old in the game, and very little sexuality. But it’s true that you dive into the intimacy of a couple, and that on some occasions, they talk about sex. Mostly in a funny manner. There is no full nudity or sex scene. You only see them before or after they have sex, like in mainstream Hollywood movies. They sometimes talk about sex, but in a light and evocative way. The goal of the game is not to make players horny, it’s to make they touched and happy.

VIOLENCE: There is not much violence in the game as the creatures are only « pacified » and return to their normal state after a fight.

DRUG AND ALCOHOL: On some occasions they will drink their own concoction – Applebrew! – and might try some food that could cause some side effect. This also explains the rating.

To sum it up: we understand the rating could have been confusing. We wish the game could have been rated 16+ but we felt it was safer to rate it 18+ to avoid any misunderstanding

On PS5, can I play with a DualShock4 (PS4 controller)

Unfortunately no. That’s a Sony limitation.
The DualShock4 only works on PS5 with PS4 games. However, if you bought Haven on PS5 you’ll be able to download Haven PS4 (when it releases early 2021) for free. And then, you can play the PS4 version on PS5 with a DualShock4.

Good to know

• Drifting (taking short turns) makes navigation MUCH smoother. When you need a strong change of direction, it’s smoother to hold the left trigger and turn, rather than stop and replace the camera.
• Eventually, there’s a map in the game, it’s just not unlocked from the start.
• There is a feature to speed up dialogs or auto play combat. It’s mapped on Q / L1 / LB. It’s completely optional and mostly useful for replaying / completion.
• You can use medkits and cures only in a safe place (nest or camp). But later in the game you can use balms anywhere outdoor (combat or exploration).
• It is possible to invert controls.
• The game is 10-12 hours long if you don’t explore everything.
• Saving happens during loading screens, so if you want to save « manually », just enter or exit an islet or the Nest.
• Save files on PC are located on C:/users//AppData/LocalLow/TheGameBakers

Wallpapers

You can find wallpapers of the game over here.

How to report a problem

On Steam you can head to the Community Hub and post in the forums HERE.

The Game Bakers Discord is also a good place for information:

If you play on console or another platform, you can also reach to support@thegamebakers.com 

We will keep the known issues up to date on this website.

Thank you!

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/!\ANSWERS CONTAINING SPOILERS /!\

Where is the last part to repair the Nest?

After you reach the volcano on Wakiri, if you go back to the Nest, Yu will highlight all the interesting locations on the map. If you don’t have any highlighted location but still miss a part, maybe you didn’t open a bridge? Look at the blue lines on the map, these are un-open flow arcs. The Left Wing is on Wakime, south of Wakiri.

Where is the hyper rust?

One is on Lonako and one on Nekatai (you need to fly a flow thread to reach the area). There are two other hyper rust chunks: one you need to beat the lorudo on Wakiri and several other islets. The other is when Oink gets rusted again on Guyame, after you scratch him a number of times.

In Haven, you play as two lovers who gave up everything and escaped to a lost planet to be together. It’s a romantic RPG about love and freedom, but a strong characteristic of the game is that you play two characters at the same time: Yu and Kay. It’s first and foremost a solo game, in which you play these two characters, but with such a duo for main characters, we couldn’t pass on the opportunity to make it also a couch co-op experience. In this blogpost, I’ll dive in details about the co-op experience for the first time.

Haven can be enjoyed solo, it’s designed for that. But at any time in the game, another player can join by simply taking another gamepad and pressing a button. The UI will show that co-op has started, it’s completely seamless.

Here, the UI shows another player just joined and triggered the co-op play.

An important part of the gameplay makes Yu and Kay explore the deserted planet gliding over the grass, collecting flow and food, and cleaning the rust in search for resources and new paths (learn more about the gameplay in our previous blog post). While gliding, one player is leading, and the other is following. The character that is following has the freedom to roam around the lead one. Each time you stop, you can exchange the lead, and “take the wheel” like it’s your turn to drive.

However, the following player is not just a co-pilot. They can control what we call a “flowblob”, a circle of flow on the ground that they can project around them to interact with the world as they glide. They can use the flowblob to clean the rust or gather resources. The lead character chooses where to go and the following character helps clean the area.

The flowblob can also be used to slow down a creature that’s chasing you:

In solo combat, the game pad is split in half. You use the dpad to load Kay’s actions and the buttons for Yu’s. In co-op, each player controls their character. The players have to combine their actions.

For instance one can be shielding while the other prepares an attack.

You can exploit temporary weaknesses by having a player stun a creature, while the other prepares an attack that will make critical damage. Or you can synchronize two similar actions on each character to make powerful duo attacks.

Last but not least, if one of your hero is down, the other one can help them stand up again.

While it’s common to see co-op mechanics for action gameplay, it’s much more unusual to see them intertwined in the storytelling. Narration-wise, when the characters talk, the player regularly has dialog choices to make, which sometimes have an impact on the game. When playing co-op, both players have to agree and validate the same dialog choice to progress. From what we’ve seen, it’s very engaging and creates heated discussions between the players on the couch.

We wanted to make a game that can be enjoyed by everyone: solo for a deep immersion with Yu and Kay, or co-op with a friend or a romantic partner. As you read this we are adding the finishing touches to the game. Haven will release December 3rd 2020 on PS5 and early 2021 on PS4.

The game experience in Haven is created by the intersection of three systems:

1. Exploration through gliding
2. Combat
3. Preparing for your next expedition in the Nest

The story is told during these three types of gameplay sequences. But let’s dive a little deeper in these systems.

Gliding over the tall grass

In a Japanese RPG, what we call “traversal gameplay” is usually pretty simple. You just move your character without any challenge, until you start a fight or reach your destination. With Haven, we wanted to reinforce the feeling of being a couple, even during exploration. We wanted to make it feel relaxing, beautiful and fun. Going down a ski slope with a friend can really feel like that. Gliding over the tall grass is Haven’s version of skiing together.

In order to explore the planet, you follow “Flow threads” that will fill your boots and gauntlets with Flow, the natural energy that powers pretty much everything in their world. It’s also used to get rid of the Rust, the red crust that corrupts the planet and creatures. Gather Flow, clean the Rust and discover resources: food or medicinal plants, materials for combat or to repair the Nest (your spaceship/home), or even souvenirs and items for your home.

Following a Flow thread is usually as chill as going down a simple ski slope, but sometimes you can find more difficult ones that will require to drift, and anticipate tight turns.

Exploration by gliding will also open up new “bridges” that connect one floating fragment to another, and allow you to reach new areas.

Combat and pacify rusted creatures

While exploring the fragments of the planet, you might encounter aggressive creatures and have to fight them. Combat is, again, thought of as a couple’s experience. It’s pretty much necessary to coordinate Yu and Kay’s attacks, or have them protect each other.

Combat happens in real-time, but you charge orders by holding buttons. Sometimes you have to react quickly to shield yourself, sometimes you have to time an attack performed by both characters, and sometimes it’s better to chain attacks, one weakening the creature and the other dealing the heavy damage.

That combat system is thought to make you want to optimize your chain of actions so that everything flows, a bit like in a rhythm game. When you’ve found the right pace, it feels very satisfying to chain actions one after the other, minimizing the hits taken and maximising the damage to the rusted creatures.

At the end of the fight, the creatures are “pacified,” meaning they are cleaned from the rust and they go back to a peaceful state.

Cuddle and prepare for your next expedition

Eventually, you need to go back to your ship to either heal yourself, cook some tasty meals or bring back the stuff you found. The ship is called The Nest for a good reason: it’s a place for nesting.

In the Nest you can craft different things: cures for improving your health, combat capsules that’ll prove helpful against the rusted creatures, and of course you can cook delicious meals.

As the characters have meals, they are not hungry anymore (when they are hungry they complain and are less efficient in combat). But most importantly, cooking and having meals together is the time for bonding. Cooking, sharing a good meal and taking a little break is when they grow, as characters and as a couple. It develops their relationship, and leads to levelling up.

In Haven, you won’t gain that many experience points in combat, you gain more by just spending good time together. That really makes Haven different, as it’s usually skipped in RPGs. You never see your heroes in their intimity. In Haven, you do.

Be with them at all times

The story is a key element in Haven’s game experience. Are they going to settle quietly on that deserted planet? Will the Apiary find them and come to separate them?

But the pace of the story comes from that intertwined game experience of gliding together to explore the valleys of planet Source, fighting and pacifying creatures and coming back home for resting, cocooning and preparing the next expedition. All in all, Haven’s game experience is about living with Yu and Kay, every minute of their adventurous daily life.

We’re hard at work to finish the game and we will soon be able to let you know when you can play Haven, so stay posted!

When I was working on AAA games, I played pretty much every blockbuster to know the market, the competition. But between a game of Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed, I needed a pause, and I used to play 30 minutes of Flower. I remember this time fondly. This game helped me relax between two overwhelming experiences.

That feeling was at the core of what I wanted to make with Haven: a game that feels like a gentle breeze. A game that lets you relax. A game that’s like holding hands on a nice outdoor walk. One way to achieve that was of course with Haven’s concept: the love story of a couple trying to stay together. A couple gliding over tall grass on a deserted planet. 

Gliding and leaving a trail of tall grass is relaxing

But that relaxing feeling doesn’t come only from the game setting. All the game design around it has to make the experience smooth and chill. I wanted a game that felt light. Lighter than most modern big games that ask you to remember so many things.

If you don’t see what I mean by that, think about any big AAA open world game or RPG. They all have tons of features, most of the time the same features but with tiny differences in their implementation. Character progression, with lots of characteristics. Weapons and upgrades. Skill trees. Combos. Vehicles. AI teammates. Consumables items. Wide variety of lootable objects. Exotic gameplays like puzzles or races… 

All those features and content are exciting. It sometimes adds depth, it helps build the lore and makes the experience immersive. But it’s also a bit tiring. Playing those games is like learning a new language. There is so much content that, naturally, it means a lot to learn and remember. 

In order to create that relaxing feeling in Haven, we had to drop all that content. We had to reduce the amount of information needed. It’s a game where we want you to feel free: you broke from your chains and you explore a mysterious planet. We don’t want the game to be a drag by asking you to remember too much. To make it feel simple, we needed to make it lighter. 

Here is a bunch of concrete design decisions that came from this philosophy: 

No quest log

A RPG needs a main quest and side quests, right? Well, there are lots of secondary things to do in Haven, they are just not formatted in a “to-do list”. If you are like me, you already have tons of to-do lists in your real life… I didn’t want Haven to be yet another game with a list of objectives to complete. So in Haven, there’s a simple main objective, given by the story and no objective list! 

You can always have a chat on the couch to get a reminder of what to do.

After that it’s just about you exploring Source. To be honest, Yu and Kay do have a logbook. It helps you remember what to look for on the different fragments of the planet. But it’s not a list of tasks. There are no “tasks to complete” in Haven, because tasks are boring and tiring.

The logbook (bottom right) lists what’s been done and left to do on each fragment.

Simple economy

In many games, you have to manage resources, currencies, and optimize your spendings to save every little gold coin you can. In Haven you won’t have to worry about micro management. You have enough or you don’t, that’s it. 

The inventory screen is rather simple compared to most RPGs

On Source, Yu and Kay gather flow, a very handy energy they use for many things. The flow meter isn’t a detailed gauge with number and an advanced refill system. It’s a ball of energy that’s more or less bubbly depending on how much flow you have. 

You never need to know “precisely” how much flow you have, you just need to know if you’re running out.

You don’t have to check how much rust (the red crust that covers the planet) or food you have, you just go craft something and you’ll see. Basically, you never really think about managing your inventory. 

Very few numbers

Even action games can be crowded with numbers these days. In Haven, you don’t have a precise health bar in combat, but instead your characters show their health status through the color of their energy suit and by the way they move. The game is designed so that you don’t need the precise info (note: and it’s also designed to be colorblind-friendly). 

When their health state changes, the characters walk and stand differently.

Their stamina and hunger are reminded through the dialogs. The only number you see is the damage when hitting an enemy or taking a hit. 

Numbers here are not really important, they just show which attack deals more damage.

Simple crafting

Crafting can be very fun and prompt experimentation. But it can also require a lot of memorisation. In Haven, the UI simply shows you the ingredients you have. You can start mixing them and you’ll see a preview of the result. 

Aaah… Creamberry flambé <3

No weapons or skill tree

I’m a RPG lover. I can appreciate spending hours choosing the best equipment for my team. But Haven’s taking a break from that. There’s no choice of weapon or skill tree. Sometimes it’s also fine to just focus on being good in combat, by yourself. And to drop the burden of comparing stats for each item in the game.

Yu and Kay evolve and gain new skills, but the game is not about becoming more powerful.

Very little HUD and UI

It seems easy to state “there will be no HUD”, but eventually you find out that people don’t understand a complex game without help from the interface… That happened to me on many games, indie and AAA alike. The only way you can achieve this is by actually having a very simple game. Journey pulled it off brilliantly. In Haven, the HUD is really super light, because the game is simple from the root.

While gliding, you just need to focus on your characters and where you want to go. 

Play coop seamlessly

Even starting a co-op session has been designed to be easy and simple. If you’re playing solo and want someone to join your game, they just have to take the gamepad and press a button. Co-op will start automatically. There’s no menu. You don’t have to start over a new game. 

A second player can join simply by pressing a button on their gamepad.

Of course simplicity is not the only way to go. I love a hairy and dense RPG as much as anyone else. But sometimes, between these deep and exhausting systems you learn in games, it’s good to take a little break. It’s what we wanted to achieve with Haven. Make it a gentle breeze, a soft hand that will take you through its journey without asking you to care too much about details. In Haven, we only want you to care about Yu and Kay.